Game of chess anyone? We have talked a lot about marketing strategies and chess more than any other game requires you to refine your strategic thinking, it is a topic we will continue to look at because it is so important, your marketing plan forms part of this. Designed to create awareness and generate interest in your brand and products, marketing strategies are perhaps even more important for a small business as they are for bigger, more established corporation. A successful marketing strategy will incorporate several different elements and tactics tailored to your specific target audience and unique marketing objectives. Once you have worked through the thought behind your marketing then we need to work out a way to help take you there, this is your marketing plan.
But you may well know all this. What you might not be aware of is that even a well-thought-out marketing plan can benefit from being re-evaluated halfway through the year. June is a perfect time to check in on how well things are performing, as you will then have six more months to work towards your goals. A couple of things to review:
Check web traffic: check over any recent trends that may be appearing on Google Analytics to see if you are still on track to achieve your marketing objectives. Identifying where your web traffic has been coming from will give you an idea of which areas of your strategy and marketing plan have been successful.
Re-hone your target audience: Remember, the most effective strategies are those targeted towards very narrow, specific audiences. So, if you need to, look again at your audience’s interests and tailor your communications and activity accordingly this is the perfect time to do so. Facebook Insights and Google Trends can help you understand what your target audience is currently interested in and how best to engage them, the good news is that they are both free tools.
Re-asses social media strategy and spend: are your boosted posts, business pages and adverts working as effectively as they could be? CLICK HERE to read a useful article about why ROI is so important for social media. You should be easily able to track number of followers, interactions and ad engagement via the platform’s own analytical tools. If a certain channel, post or advert type has not worked so far for you in 2017 – stop spending time and money on it and try something else!
Check on your content plan: to see if your content is still as relevant as it could be, bearing in mind any revisions to your target audience. Are there any new influencers in your market that you could collaborate with? How about relevant bloggers that might want to talk about your brand or different media that might wish to try partnering with.
Spice up your email newsletter: Review your open and click through rates by using the tools inbuilt to any email marketing systems and see which subject lines have been the most successful. Plan to further test and refine through A/B testing and playing around with different times and days. Think about mixing things up or even spending money on having the email redesigned. If your newsletter is currently used for direct selling purposes, why not start including wider content your audience might be interested in.
CLICK HERE to read our other articles on marketing strategies and of course if you would like some help in getting started then please CONTACT US. Let us know how you get on – are you on track to achieve your goals this year?
Sources:
http://kingkong.com.au/6-top-marketing-strategies-from-fortune-500-companies/
